Review and Recap is where I give a quick review of a comic, usually less in-depth than my regular reviews, before recapping it and adding some commentary here and there. Obviously spoilers abound in the commentary section. Anyway, here’s my Review and Recap of Justice League of America: Rebirth #1.

The Review:

The name ‘Justice League of America’ hasn’t had much luck in the last few years. Geoff Johns’ series seemed to exist solely to tie-in to his Trinity War and Forever Evil events, and Bryan Hitch’s version was so unremarkable that I’ve heard nobody speak of it outside of maybe one scene and bemoaning its numerous delays. But third time’s the charm, right? Surely Steve Orlando can take a team of B-list, Arrowverse-friendly characters (and Lobo) and finally give the name something worth a damn, right? Apparently, yes. Thanks to a clear mission statement for the team and motives for its cast of interesting characters, Justice League of America is off to a promising start.

The story is fairly straightforward — Batman recruits his Justice League. But Orlando does a good job clearly giving reasons for the characters (well, most of them) to join, while also setting up the various team dynamics. It’s nothing remarkable, but there’s a lot of potential for future stories set up, and the various relationships are interesting and set up well. The team’s mission statement, according to Batman, is to be a team that people can know and be inspired by, as opposed to the gods of the Justice League. It’s a good idea, and would mostly work if it weren’t for the presence of Batman himself, who has a secret identity, a mythic quality to him and is a Leaguer. That aside, the set-up is very well done while maintaining a good pace.

Something that helps the issue is that its characters, none of whom could be considered A-list aside from Batman, are fair game for whatever Orlando wants to do with them. Unlike the cast of Justice League, most of the cast of Justice League of America don’t have any other ongoing comic that their development is reserved for. Steve Orlando is free to develop his characters how he sees fit, so it’s much easier to get emotionally invested in the characters, rather than just the plot. It might be my cynicism, but as it is, it’s far more likely that I’ll be invested in whatever happens to Lobo in this series than Barry Allen and Jessica Cruz dating in Justice League, since I know there’s no Lobo ongoing that’s more important and already has a love interest for him.

Ivan Reis’ art is mostly good, with his usual flair for lighting and expressive faces for the most part. However, it feels a bit rushed, whether that be some more ill-defined faces or just rushed inking from Joe Prado and/or Oclair Albert. While it’s by no means weak — Reis, Prado and Maiolo are still a treat — the art is just not quite up to the standards I have for this art team.

Justice League of America: Rebirth #1 is a superhero comic with an interesting cast with interesting relationships and a great art team. While its B-list cast could’ve been a hindrance, Steve Orlando knows how to get readers invested. If this issue and the previous one-shots are any indicator, Justice League of America is shaping up to be the Justice League comic worth reading.

This is a new thing I’m trying where I briefly review (shut up, I totally know how to be brief!) a comic before providing commentary as I recap it. Just wanted to try something new, and where better to start than the start of Steve Orlando’s Justice League of America run?

Oh, and I totally stole this format from a Tumblr I use to read called Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea, who I thought had stopped posting, but I guess not. Oh, and that awful name should inform you of the high calibre stuff I used to read.

Written by Steve OrlandoArt by Andy MacDonald
Colours by John Rauch

The Review:

The Atom: Rebirth was something I kind of just picked up out of mild curiosity. I don’t care about any of the Atoms, and I’m not a fan of Steve Orlando. But I decided to give it a go for the sake of testing the waters of Justice League of America, something else I wasn’t sure about, and it’s actually a good read! A nice and heartwarming, self-contained origin story for Ryan Choi’s Atom.

The comic has a nice sci-fi vibe to it, like if you combined the art style and general style of Marvel’s recent Ant-Man ongoing with a bit of Silver Age charm. Ryan’s relationship with Ray Palmer is a sweet student-mentor one, and he’s got something of a supporting cast built up, with his parents, roommate and possibly Jean Loring. While I’m not too keen on one of the few prominent Asian superheroes being an awkward nerd (complete with lots of allergies!), it was nice to see Ryan’s relationship with Ray bring him out of his shell a little. There’s decent potential for future stories, though how this issue sets up what it was supposed to (Justice League of America), remains to be seen. Regardless, The Atom: Rebirth is just a good story and introduction to Ryan Choi, with some stuff set up for the future.